parked cows and the break down of reality

last night we were driving in salerno. not in the very centre, but still in a crowded neighbourhood. we were in front of a school. basically, here.

and we find a cow. at first we didn't believe it was real. why should a cow be parked between two cars?
that's when reality starts being so absurd you think it's fake. you don't expect a cow there, then it can't be real. but no xmas decoration explanation made any sense for that cow's arse. so we drive back and check.

it's a real cow, alive and eating from the garbage. with the saddest face i ever saw on a cow.

and i start wondering, in what kind of country do i live?
and again reality breaks down, and i feel like i'm in the promo i saw of the documentary about the garbage business in acerra ("biutiful cauntri", see prev post) with the sheep grazing in a garbage dump. so i feel i'm in that film, actually it's not reality breaking down because it's a documentary about real stuff. as a matter of fact, that's reality. a documentary movie with no distribution is reality, and we just happen to live in a fake, not even accurate imitation of it. and unless you find a cow searching for food in the garbage, you tend to forget about it.

merry xmas and green washing

in this cloudy xmas day in salerno apparently i didn't find anything better to do than browsing the net looking for information about the worst european lobbys and their pr efforts to look nice and environmentalist...

and so i found this video, which i cannot embed here but here is the link: Gruenes Image dank guter PR

it's from the zdf website and it's in german, but am proud to say i nearly understood everything!

so may you all have a merry xmas and beware of greenwashing!

vigilia a salerno, or: when grannies get young again

here i am, back home.
home is salerno, south of italy. small nice city by the sea. maybe overcrowded with extremely dull people, but still plenty of lovely folks :)

speaking of dull... on xmas eve (vigilia) the local tradition is to scroll the whole day on the very very long pedestrian area (reminds of the hauptstrasse?? but ours's nicer!) and finish xmas shopping and meet everybody you know. and just eat a bite so when you go back home in the late afternoon you're ready for the big dinner.

i think i started hating this tradition when i was still at school. but when you're living outside for most of the year, you kind of feel it's somehow nice. even though you keep bumping into people you have no clue about anymore, and that's the best case, while the worst scenario is you meet someone really unbearable and find yourself mysteriously wishing them all the best for xmas and new year...

but still, once per year you can do it.

but apparently this year people are younger and younger (inside and outside) and feel they really want to party on xmas eve. so all the fancy bars have sound systems outside and dance music spreading all over the place. and since on our pedestrian there's a fancy bar every ten metres, the decibel amount of the whole area is huuuge!

and me and my mates, we're not young anymore. but even when we were younger, we were already feeling old. so we are looking for a quiet place to grab a bite and maybe a glass of wine and quietly speak with each other. but with me hobbling because of stupid sprain in the knee it's not really easy to escape from the crowded area.

so... we find ourselves sitting outside one of the youngest bars in the place, with unz unz music coming out and young people everywhere... and that's just because we are so old and wanted to get a seat!! (and obviously also because the plates full of food coming with the drinks looked extremely yummy...)

without any morality left, the grannies have become young again :)

[video coming soon]

1984 in the google era

i just found a very nice story written by Cory Doctorow, who apparently is a blogger, writer and journalist and writes nice stuff:

SCROOGLED
what if Google were evil?

here is an italian translation for lazy people, which i found on nazione indiana, where i actually found out about the story in the first place (great source of information that site):
Scroogled (in italiano)

a beautiful country??

i just found out about a movie, a documentary, that has just been released in italy:
Biutiful cauntri


it's about the situation of the garbage in campania, the region in italy where i come from. the situation is really tough, and has been so for more than 10 years now.

i am nobody to speak about that, because i left the place and because i don't know so many things. but i can spot who really has something to say about it. and from the 3 minute promo i saw on the internet, i can say that this movie is worth being seen.

i haven't seen it though, it was only projected at the film festival in torino one month ago, and still got no distribution. which is no surprise obviously.

but i am damn curious about watching it. not only for the things i could learn from it. those you can always look for in some official documents. i mean, these products like the book "gomorrah" or movies like this one, they don't really say unknown things. it's more like they state the obvious. what's so obvious that we tend to forget.

and they do have the merit to broaden the audience who might be interested in such issues.

that's why i am curious about "biutiful cauntri". it looks like good stuff. i want to see it and confirm what i thought after watching the trailer: a movie like this should be screened on national tv at 20:00 for a whole week! and maybe distributed in schools and offices, and public discussion should follow.

as for now, i will just start looking for the authors hoping that i will be able at least to have a look at it...

let's add some links

ok, i arrived at the point that i really have so many bookmarks, so many links, so many things i would like to share with other people, that i should at least prepare a list of links...

i know nobody ever considers my blog so i am going to share them with myself... but still it will be practical, when i want to read something again and again!

losing perspective (and stuff btw)

well, it all started less than one week ago.
well, probably things started not really working properly a bit earlier. like things that did not really make sense started like 9-10 days ago. like destille signs. but that's another story.
so, last sunday i leave hd, didn't really want to but kind of had to. went to a winter school my institute sort of organised. could not avoid going. still some destille signs during the journey, like rushing to get the train while still literally packing, like catching the train in munich by a miracle in spite of the 1h coincidence, and other stuff like that. want to vomit on the bus up the mountains. but then i arrive to this village in the middle of nowhere, well in the middle of the alps but also nowhere, and things start looking better. nice people, a lot of snow, didn't expect it at this time of the year. start going to the lectures, they're fine, then get skipass, skis and boots, start going down the slopes... and it's lovely, nobody is around because it's still not peak season, and there is a lot of snow...
and then just after a couple of hours i just fall, like it never happened to me, and i hear crack. shit. total fear.

i still don't know what's wrong, something with my knee. no broken bone, that should be sure. hopefully no broken ligament, but this still need be checked. since then i am not supposed to walk. ten days of rest. which is killing me, even though i'm not really resting. i did not rest at the school, wanted at least attend classes. so i was begging all the time people to drive me 300 m to the conference hall, jumping on crutches all over the place... i was just starting getting tired of that, but really tired, and i found out i have a fever, but a really strong one, like 39 C... and my throat is full of crap so i'm also on antibiotics...

so finally yesterday i manage to escape from that teeny place in the middle of nowhere and after a long and perilous journey, on buses, trains, flight and obviously crutches!! after being checked at the airport because my orthopedic device beeped, after everything... i am finally back in my room and no fever and i can finally sleep well and have sweet dreams again!!
it's still a mess to jump around and bother people all the time, but still, i think i'll have to do it for a while. don't know, feels weird the idea of having to stay rest for a while. even though i know i have to, it's the only way to recover.
so i'm losing perception. i'm losing the whole framework. i was kind of trying to sort out things, and now i cannot even tide up my room, which by the way is a mess.
and i lost several small things too, which don't really matter but altogether it's another sign: one sock, one ball from the piercing, two hanging thingies from my mobile, and today another earing.

what is nature trying to tell me with all this?? what?? slow down?? (with what?? me?? not really the most frantic girl in town...) relax?? focus on something?? what??


or maybe i should just do what rob is suggesting me:
"This would be an excellent time for you to visit terminally ill patients in a hospice or go on a tour of a maximum security prison. To take maximum advantage of the current cosmic opportunities, you might also travel to the Slum Theme Park in Americus, Georgia, where Habitat for Humanity has built replicas of the leaky-roofed, earthen-floored, bug-infested huts that so many millions of the world's poor call home. In other words, Aries, I recommend that you give yourself firsthand exposure to people whose problems are much more demanding than yours. To do so at this juncture in your life's journey would provide a helpful shock that would inspire you to conquer the personal challenge you find most daunting. "